Computer Networking: A Top-Down Approach - 5th Edition

Building on the successful top-down approach of previous editions, Computer Networking continues with an early emphasis on application-layer paradigms and application programming interfaces, encouraging a hands-on experience with protocols and networking concepts. Networking today involves much more than standards specifying message formats and protocol behaviors—and it is far more interesting. Professors Kurose and Ross focus on describing emerging principles in a lively and engaging manner and then illustrate these principles with examples drawn from Internet architecture.User's review

“"This book covers all of the essential material that is in the other (Computer Networking) books but manages to do so in a relevant and entertaining way. This book is very up to date as seen by the release of the 5th Ed when the 4th Ed is barely two years old. There are lots of practical exercises using wireshark and the companion website is actually useful and relevant. The attitude of this book with regard to teaching networking concepts could be summed up as "try it out and see for yourself". One interesting thing to note is that the socket programming example are all in Java."”